An 1872 Manifesto for the 'Working Girl'

Much is said that is excellent in advice to young girls, but before you rely upon it implicitly, I wish you would notice whether it is the advice of a man or a woman. Neither sex can understand the wants of the other as well as they can the wants of their own. You have enough of advice, certainly; I shall only tell you a few well-known truths. Do not make matrimony the sole end and aim of your existence. Know that colleges, schools of art, and the learned professions are being opened to women; you need not accept the first man who offers himself, whether you love him or not, because you have to be supported somehow. It is more respectable for a lady to earn her own living. It is better for the moral condition of society that girls should become doctors, artists, telegraph operators, book-keepers, or anything that will support them honestly, rather than become the wives of men they cannot love. Girls, never marry for the poor boon of either a home or a husband. Do not sell yourselves for gold, for 'marriage without love is an inferno more terrible than Dante ever pictured.' It is better to be a cheerful, contented 'old maid,' than an unhappy, discontented wife. Some of the noblest women who ever existed have never married, for they preferred 'single blessedness' to 'wedded misery.' There is no greater mistake than to affirm either that matrimony is the ultimate destiny of women, or that a single life is a condition of misery.